things you said
by thir13enth
Summary: things you said through the years. things i hear forever in my memories. —jerza. achronological, based off prompt list "things you said"
1. when it was over

**this series written a few years back, but for some reason, never published. **

**— based off the prompt list: "things you said..." **

* * *

**after it was over**  
_"We were always ready, we just didn't know it."_

* * *

He hears her, actually.

He hears her when she says yes.

She closes her hand over her mouth and gasps, trying to cover up the sound, but he hears her anyway — and it's like he knows exactly where her eyes are because when he looks up, their eyes lock. And when she glances down for a moment at his lips, she sees the wide smile across his face, one that she already knew was there by the sight of his bright eyes.

And then she realizes that she can't get away with pretending she just… happened to be passing by the room on her way to the bathroom and just… happened to peek into their room when she thought she saw him oddly talking to himself in the mirror. She's never been good at lying to him anyway, and this time he's caught her right in the act.

"Yes," she repeats, a little louder this time, and she opens the partially cracked open door, spilling into the room and running into his arms so hard that she knocks the box and the ring onto the floor.

"Ah, Erza," he says, his voice hiccuping a couple of times when the force of her jumping onto him bounces his voice. "You caught me."

"Yes, yes, _yes_," she repeats, over and over again. She's not sure if she's crying or laughing, if she's scared or if she's excited, all that she knows is that there are drops of tears hanging off her eyelids, and that her heart is nearly beating out of her chest and that she's so ecstatic that she can't even think anymore.

"Yes what?" he teases, reaching down to pick up the ring and the box on the floor.

"Yes, I'll _marry _you," she answers in a half scream, without any cloud of doubt.

"You can't answer a question I haven't even asked yet!" he laughs. He looks calm but she can see tell that his heart is beating as fast as hers and that his mind is spinning as wildly as hers.

"I guess then technically I proposed to you before you could propose to me," she teases.

"Where's the ring then?" he asks her, hiding the box and the ring behind his back. "Where's _my_ ring?"

"I guess there's only one for me," she says, sticking out her tongue.

He laughs and thinks he'd think of a comeback but he doesn't play around with her anymore; he doesn't want to keep her ring finger alone for much longer. Within a heartbeat, he produces the ring out from behind his back, taking her hand in one hand and gently slipping his ring over her finger.

It's small, simple. White gold and diamond. She doesn't know how much it is, and for a brief moment, she remembers just how many hours he was putting into his work — and to think that all the extra time and work and energy was going into _this_.

"You know I was going to wait until we were ready," he simply says.

"We were _always_ ready," she reminds him, bringing him in closer. "We just didn't know it," she says, her voice softening.

His head tips to the side, smile widening. "Or at least until _after_ we had dinner," he remarks. His eyes stray from hers only to look down as he picks up her hand in his, admiring the sight of her consent.

She looks down at the ring as well, thumbing the sharp edges of the shimmering and bright gem. As beautiful as the jewelry is, there's a part of her that almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of how this piece of metal is supposed to represent the years they've already been together — despite the days they spent apart, despite all their ups and downs, despite the ways they were both broken — and the decades they have yet to spend at each other's side.

It's _real_. _Everything _is real. They were going to be _married_.

When she pulls her eyes away to look up at him, meeting the beauty of his dark eyes. It's not very long before they close their eyes and lean in for a long kiss, breathing in each other. She can feel his fluttering breath under her nose, and she can feel his hard-beating heart pressed against her own rising chest.

They only pull away when they've missed each other's smile, and she looks at him for a long time before coming back in to embrace him. All she can see is him and his bright eyes, and in her peripheral vision, the mirror on the dresser to the right of them, the reflection of the two of them together. She turns her head to the image, cherishing the sight and imagining it tucked away in the pages of a photo scrapbook.

She points to it, mesmerized. "Look Jellal," is all she can manage.

He looks in the direction of her finger, also seeing the reflection of her so blushed, so happy next to him so flushed, so excited. The shine of the new ring makes their mirror image twinkle, but nothing shines brighter than their smiles and their eyes.

This is it, she realizes.

_This_ is the happy ending they were meant to have.

This is the happy ending that they would never argue about. This is the happy ending they could not have without the other. It was like their own fairy tale, just like the ones that they used to read together sitting cross-legged on the dirty carpets of the elementary school library so long ago.

But is it really the end? Is it really over?

Is it really over when they have so much left to live?

No, she doesn't think so. And she doesn't think there is an end when she looks into his eyes.

* * *

**thir13enth**


	2. after you kissed me

**as always, thank you for reading and for the support**

* * *

**after you kissed me**  
_"I'm sorry."_

* * *

It's as if the moment is waiting for _them_, and not the other way around.

He's there and she's there, and they are there alone, together.

They're sitting in each other's lap, sprawled over the cushions of the old sofa in the middle of his living room. They're sitting far too close to be simply friends, yet too far to be defined as lovers. It's this distance — this _same _amount of distance — that separated them first when she last said goodbye to him. This same distance — maybe only a few inches at best but filled with an infinite length of uncertainty and hesitation — is now the only thing between their hearts.

So close but also too far.

And so the kiss happens. And when it does, it's sudden, it's surprising, and it's imperfect.

Yet right in every single way.

She leans in further, a fire lit over her tongue. She's imagined this moment — not for this very time, but so many other times in her head — but this is nothing like what she had in mind. This is not a musing when she had time waiting for the bus at the stop, not a fleeting moment in a dream she barely remembers, nor an afterthought of what could have been if she had stayed a little while longer.

This is _real_. She reaches forward for his collar and pulls him toward her, and she feels his arms wrap around her tight and warm. She sinks into him, and it's like her entire body has been waiting for this very moment for all her life.

It couldn't have gone any other way, she realizes.

She wonders why this moment hadn't happened anytime sooner.

And then all too soon, all too fast — he pulls away.

Her eyes split open, and all they see are his wide and scared eyes.

She doesn't know why he is scared.

"I'm sorry," he says.

He looks like he's met death. Like he realized, too, that this moment was completely inevitable.

"I shouldn't have done that."

And then all too soon, all too fast — he's slipped out of her arms.

All too soon, all too fast — he's out of the room, leaving not another word behind.

* * *

**thir13enth**


End file.
